﻿FLORA CAPENSIS. 



Order XCI. HYDROPHYLLACEiE. 



(By C. H. Wright.) 



Flowers hermaphrodite, regular. Calyx inferior, 5- or 10-12- 

 lobed, sometimes appendiculate in the sinus. Corolla funnel-shaped, 

 palver-shaped, campanulate or rotate ; lobes 5 or 10-12, imbricate, 

 rarely contorted. Stamens as many as the corolla-lobos, usually 

 fixed near the base of the corolla-tube, exserted or included ; fila- 

 ments filiform, sometimes dilated or appendiculate at the base ; 

 anthers ovate, oblong or linear, versatile, dehiscing by two longi- 

 tudinal slits. Disk hypogynous, small or 0. Ovary superior, either 

 1 -celled with 2 parietal placentas, or imperfectly or perfectly 

 2-celled ; style filiform, 2-fid, or styles 2, free ; stigmas terminal, 

 small or capitate ; ovules 2-X) , anatropous or amphitropous. 

 Capsule loculicidally (rarely septicidally) 2-valved, or dehiscing 

 irregularly. Seeds oblong, globose or angled, 2-qo , tubercled, 

 reticulate or rugose, rarely smooth ; albumen fleshy ; embryo 

 usually less than j the length of the albumen, straight ; cotyledons 

 plano-convex or semiterete. 



Annual or perennial herbs, rarely suffi'utescent, usually hirsute or scabrid, 

 sometimes densely bristly or spiny; leaves radical or alternate, rarely opposite, 

 entire, toothed or pinnately (rarely palmately) lobed ; flowers usually subsessile 

 along one side of the branches of a bifid or dichotomous scorpioid cyme, some- 

 times in simple spikes or racemes, or axillary. 



DrsTKiB. Genera 16 (1 only in South Africa); species ahnnt 150, chiefly in 

 "Western North America, a fmv extendin^jf along the Andes to Cbili ; also lu the 

 tropics of the Old World, and the Sandwich Islands, 1 in Japan. 



I. CODON, Linn. 



Calyx-lobes 10-12, linear, the alternate sometimes smaller. Corolla 

 widely campanulate, very slightly constricted at the middle, without 

 scales inside; lobes 10-12, broad, oblong, imbricate, tlie alternate 

 wider at the base. Stamens 10-12, slightly unequal ; filaments 

 hirsute below the middle ; anthers oblong. Ovary spuriously 2- 

 celled by the intrusion of the placentas ; style filiform, usually short, 

 2-fid ; stigmas small ; ovules numerous. Capsule 2-valved ; valves 

 bearing the placentas on their centres. Seeds small, numerous, 

 globose or angular, rugose. 



Erect herbs, clothed all over with straight white spines ; leaves alternate, 

 petioled, undivided; margins entire or sinuate-dentate; flowers cymoKe at the 

 apex of the branches or solitary. 



VOL. IV. — SECT. II. B 



